City considering new curbside recycling program with incentives

Yolanda Ortiz explores the options for eco-friendly living in downtown Knoxville.

Bennett Horton unloads his recyclables Wednesday at the recycling center beside Kroger in Bearden on Kingston Pike. Horton said it’s amazing how much junk comes through his mailbox.

Bennett Horton unloads his recyclables Wednesday at the recycling center beside Kroger in Bearden on Kingston Pike. Horton said it’s amazing
how much junk comes through his mailbox.

Claire Queisser
drops by the recycling
center beside
the Kroger
in Bearden
Wednesday between
work
and picking up
her child from
school. Queisser
said she tries
to combine
trips to save
on gas. Waste
Connections of
Tennessee officials
announced
a potential incentives
plan to increase
curbside
recycling participation.

Waste Connections of Tennessee officials say they've found the "missing link" incentive needed to bring recycling out of the eco-friendly fringes and into the cost-conscious mainstream through a program now under consideration by the city of Knoxville.

Partnering with Philadelphia-based RecycleBank, the city's trash contractor would offer a nonsorted, curbside collection service for all the same materials now accepted at the city's 11 recycling drop-off centers, with the added carrot to customers of monthly rebate coupons.

The coupons would be redeemable at businesses including grocery stores, pharmacies and movie theaters.

"In 35 years … I could not find the thing that kept recycling being reinforced continually," said Doug McGill with Waste Connections. "For once, you'll get something back for doing something right."

At an invitation-only sales pitch to representatives of more than 20 area municipalities Wednesday, the two firms touted both the "idiot-proof" ease to households and local governments' potential for long-term cost savings by reducing landfill fees.

For solid waste officials with the city of Knoxville - which spent $1.2 million hauling residential garbage to the landfill last year - the approach makes enough sense to merit a closer look.

"We're trying to figure out a way to make it economically viable," said David Brace, the city's deputy director of public service. "Personally, I'm a big supporter. I'd love to see it happen."

RecycleBank, founded in 2004, offers the service in the Northeast and has begun work in the Midwest, although it has yet to enter a Southeast U.S. market, company officials said.

Waste Connections, which is contracted to haul both the city's garbage and drop-off recycling materials, underscored that its tentative partnership with RecycleBank would require a minimum 10,000 customers to launch the initiative. But with some 6,000 Knox County subscribers among its more-limited recycling program now, that bar shouldn't be too high to meet - the firm expects to draw from a 14-county region to make up the difference.

Benson Henry, Waste Connections division vice president, said the company has the necessary trucks and other technology on order now and is set to roll out the new service among its current curbside recycling subscribers Oct. 1. If the city of Knoxville signs on, he said, the contractor is prepared to invest another $6 million to take the program citywide.

"We're gearing up now with the trucks and the men," Henry said. "What RecycleBank is going to bring to the table is incentive."

Customers would receive either a 60- or 96-gallon bin with an electronic bar code. As materials are collected on a truck, an onboard scale would weigh each household's output. In turn, customers could track their recycling rate and redeem earned points for coupons online or through the mail. The points can carry over month to month, allowing customers to accumulate them for larger purchases.

By RecycleBank's estimates, 75 percent of all household-generated materials are recyclable. And with an average of 20 pounds per weekly pick up, customers could earn $20 a month in rewards. Typically, more than half the coupons are specific to local businesses, in addition to some for national retailers such as Best Buy and Ikea.

"People will turn their houses upside down looking for stuff to recycle," said RecycleBank's Preston Reed.

Making his weekly trip to the city's drop-off bins at the Knox Plaza shopping center in Bearden, retiree Bennett Horton said he has no idea how many pounds he recycles at a time. And unless the coupons proved to be truly valuable, "I might be inclined to keep doing what I'm doing."

Horton said it also would depend on whether it's offered as a new city service or by subscription fee.

Brace said the city is trying to decide that as well. The program's cost, its cost savings and any lost revenue from the drop-off centers all need to be weighed.

Still, he said it has the potential to drastically increase the city's recycling rate, which currently is about 5,000 tons per year, versus the average 50,000 tons sent to a landfill in Anderson County annually.